Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2026 Cadent Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Michael McKenney, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Stephen. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Cadence Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. With me on the call today is Jeff Powell, our Chief Executive Officer. Before we begin, let me read our safe harbor statement. Various remarks that we may make today about Cadence future plans and expectations Financial and Operating Results and Prospects are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those outlined at the beginning of our slide presentation and those discussed under the adding risk factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 3rd, 2026, and subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, any forward-looking statements we make during this webcast represent our views and estimates only as of today. While we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, even if our views or estimates change. During this webcast, we will refer to some non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is contained in our third quarter earnings press release and the slides presented on the webcast and discussed in the conference call, which are available in the investor section of our website at cadent.com. Finally, I wanted to note that when we refer to GAAP earnings per share, or EPS, and adjusted EPS on this call. We are referring to each of these measures as calculated on a diluted basis. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jeff Powell, who will give you an update on Caden's business and future prospects. Following Jeff's remarks, we will give an overview of our financial results for the quarter, and we will then have a Q&A session. Jeff?

Thanks, Mike. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning to review our third quarter results and discuss our outlook for the remainder of the year. We had an excellent financial performance in the third quarter across a broad range of key metrics. We achieved record revenue and were particularly pleased with record aftermarket parts revenue in Q3, continuing the record-setting pace from both Q1 and Q2 of this year. As you know, our aftermarket business is a core strategic growth area, and it's encouraging to see this continue to thrive. Market demand for capital equipment strengthened, so political uncertainty and economic headwinds continue to impact the timing of large projects. We are winning new capital projects, but the quote to order cycle continues to be extended. As has been the case throughout 2026, our operation teams around the world delivered exceptional value for our customers and shareholders. I want to thank them for their outstanding efforts and the results they produced in third quarter, as well as their commitment to our operational excellence demonstrated throughout the year. Turning next to slide six, I would like to review our Q3 financial performance. Q3 revenue and earnings performance continue to improve sequentially. I am pleased to report record adjusted EPS performance. Bookings in the third quarter increased 23% to the same period last year with growth across all three of our operating segments. Revenue was up 15% to a record $313 million and benefited from outstanding aftermarket parts business and record first half bookings. Our focus on internal cost control and solid execution contributed to increased operating leverage with record adjusted EBITDA of $72 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin of nearly 23%. We are thrilled to achieve these results in less than ideal market conditions. Adjusted EPS was also a record at $3.64 in the third quarter. And finally, cash flow from operations and free cash flow in the third quarter were records at $63 million and $58 million respectively. demonstrating the continued strength of our business model. Next, I'd like to review the performance of our operating segments, beginning with our flow control segment. Record aftermarket parts revenue and solid capital equipment shipments drove an 8% year-over-year increase in Q3 revenue. Growth was led by our fluid handling product line, supported by healthy demand from the energy, defense, and packaging markets. Encouragingly, our newer activity was up more than 7% largely due to the growth in our aftermarket business. Adjusted EBITDA of 31 million was a record, and up 22% compared to the same period last year, leading to a record EBITDA margin of 30.7%. Factory automation, defense, and energy markets continue to show strength, particularly in the Americas, while industrial activity in Europe and Asia reflects the persistent economic headwinds in those regions. As we look ahead to the remainder of 2026, we expect stable demand in our flow control segment. The segment continues to benefit from diversified market exposure with improving investment sentiment in North America and Asia, helping to offset some of the softness in Europe. Our industrial processing segment again delivered excellent quarterly results despite challenges in the global capital equipment market. Strong competitive positioning, recent acquisitions, and 12% organic Bookings Growth drove new orders to $123 million. Revenue increased to $143 million with strong contribution from both aftermarket parts and capital equipment shipments. Operational leverage in our recent acquisitions contributed to our improved margin performance in this segment. Adjusted EBITDA was $37 million and represented 26.1% of revenue in the third quarter. Looking ahead, we believe our aftermarket demand will remain stable and that our capital business will see an uptick in order activity. Our capital project pipeline remains healthy, and we expect orders will move forward as economic confidence strengthens. In our material and handling segment, we benefited from strong commercial execution in the third quarter. Our bookings were up 13% to $67 million, led by exceptional aftermarket demand for bulk material and handling equipment. Revenue was down 4% compared to the record third quarter performance of last year. This decline was due entirely to lower capital shipments compared to the same period last year. while the lower revenue volume with the lower revenue volume adjusted EBITDA margin decreased to 22.1% compared to the record performance of Q3 in last year. We expect demand to be stable in the near term and project activity to remain healthy, particularly in infrastructure spending and the build out and data centers. For the remainder of 2026, we expect demand to remain stable with potential upside from capital projects. There remains a lot of activity around new capital projects, and this could become a meaningful contributor, though the timing of these projects can be uncertain and could shift to 2027. Before I turn the call over to Mike for a closer look at our third quarter performance, I'd like to briefly address my upcoming transition to executive chairman and Michael Colwell's appointment as CEO. I've had the privilege of leading what I believe is an exceptional company, not just one with great products and innovative technologies, but a company whose people come to work every day determined to make a real difference for our customers, communities, and all Cadent stakeholders. Over the past 48 years, I've been a part of some great businesses. None, however, compare to Cadent. It comes down to the special qualities that make Cadent unique. I believe our culture of integrity, commitment, accountability, and entrepreneurism allows us to serve our customers better, creating lasting value for the shareholders. When Michael takes over at the beginning of the year, I will remain actively engaged in supporting the leadership team and its growth initiatives. I want to thank the employees and shareholders for the opportunity to be part of Cadence's legacy, and I'm confident that Cadence's best years are still ahead. I'll now pass the call over to Mike for his review of our Q3 financial performance. Mike.

Thank you, Jeff. I'll start with our third quarter performance. Our third quarter record revenue of $313.2 million included record aftermarket parts revenue of $218.4 million. Organic revenue increased 4% compared to the third quarter of 25, including a 5% increase in organic capital revenue. Gross margin was 44.7% in the third quarter of 26, down 50 basis points compared to 45.2% in the third quarter of 25, largely due to a lower gross margin profile associated with the mix of capital projects in the period. We had a benefit in the third quarter from tariff refunds, but this was offset by the negative impact from the amortization of acquired profit and inventory and deferred profit associated with intercompany sales at our cadence profile acquisition. SG&A expenses as a percentage of revenue decreased to 26.4% in the third quarter of 26 compared to 27.9% in the prior year period. SG&A expenses were 82.7 million in the third quarter of 26, increasing 6.9 million compared to 75.8 million in the third quarter of 25. This increase includes 6.1 million of operating expenses and 2.3 million in non-cash intangible amortization expense from our recent acquisitions. These increases in SG&A expense were partially offset by a $2 million decrease in acquisition-related costs. Our GAAP EPS increased 26% to $2.96 in the third quarter, and our adjusted EPS increased 21% to a record $3.64 in the third quarter of 26. The third quarter 26 adjusted EPS exceeded the high end of our guidance range by 64 cents in part due to higher than expected revenue. This included higher than expected after markets parts revenue at our industrial processing segment as well as higher capital revenue at our flow control segment. In addition, our acquisitions performed better than anticipated and our operating expenses were lower than forecast. This strong performance contributed to a record adjusted EBITDA and record cash flow performance in the quarter, which I'll discuss further in further detail on the next slide. Adjusted EBITDA increased 24% to a record 71.7 million compared to 58 million in the third quarter 25 due to strong performance at our industrial processing segment driven by our recent acquisitions and record performance at our flow control segment. Adjusted EBITDA margin exceeded the last four quarters and rose to 22.9% compared to 21.4% in the third quarter of 25. I should note that our businesses have done an excellent job in controlling expenses while optimizing business processes to help drive our record results.

Turning to our cash flows.

We had both record operating and free cash flow in the third quarter of 26 at $62.9 million and $58.1 million respectively. On a year-to-date basis, both metrics are ahead of last year with free cash flow up 20% over last year. Non-operating uses of cash in the third quarter of 26 included $51 million of repayments on our debt, $4.8 million for capital expenditures, and 4.3 million for a dividend on our common stock. Let me turn next to our EPS results for the quarter. Our adjusted EPS increased 63 cents from $3.01 in the third quarter of 25 to $3.64 in the third quarter of 26. This included increases of 50 cents from the operating results of our recent acquisitions excluding associated borrowing costs 29 cents due to higher revenue and four cents due to a lower tax rate. These increases were partially offset by 15 cents in higher interest expense, two cents due to a lower gross margin percentage, two cents due to higher non-controlling interest and one cent due to higher weighted average shares outstanding. Our effective tax rate of 26.4% in the third quarter was lower than anticipated primarily due to discrete tax benefits. Collectively included in all the categories I just mentioned was a favorable foreign currency translation effect of two cents in the third quarter of 26 compared to the third quarter of last year. Looking at our liquidity metrics on slide 15, our cash conversion days were 133 at both the end of the third and second quarters of 26 compared to 131 at the end of the third quarter of 25. Working capital as a percentage of revenue decreased to 17.8% in the third quarter of 26 compared to 19.3% in the second quarter of 26. Our net debt, that is debt less cash decreased 56.4 million or 15% sequentially to 316.6 million. As noted earlier, we paid down 51 million of our debt this quarter demonstrating our ability to generate strong cash flow globally and efficiently pay down our acquisition borrowings. Our leverage ratio calculated in accordance with our credit agreement decreased to 1.49 compared to 1.72 at the end of the second quarter of 26. At the end of the third quarter of 26, we had 300 million of borrowing capacity available under a revolving credit facility. Now I'll review our guidance for 26. Despite many challenging market conditions, we delivered strong financial performance in the third quarter and expect to end the year with records in a number of financial metrics, including revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS. We also had record operating and free cash flow in the third quarter as well as the first nine months of 26. We are raising the lower end of our full year 26 revenue guidance to $1,195,000,000 to $1,210,000,000, revised from our previous guidance of $1,190,000,000 to $1,210,000,000. We are raising our adjusted EPS guidance and now expect $12.58 to $12.73 in 26, revised from our previous guidance of $12.43 to $12.68. Our adjusted EPS guidance excludes $2.19 of intangible amortization expense and 51 cents of acquisition-related costs. Our revenue guidance for the fourth quarter of 26 is 287 to 302 million, and our adjusted EPS guidance for the fourth quarter is $2.67 to $2.82, which excludes 55 cents of intangible amortization expense and 11 cents of acquisition related costs. Our full year 26 guidance includes the following assumptions, gross margins of 44 to 44.3%, SG&A as a percentage of revenue of 27 to 27.5%, net interest expense of 19 to 19.5 million, a tax rate of 27 to 27.5% and depreciation expense of 27.5 to 28 million. That concludes my review of the financials, and I'll now turn the call back over to the operator, Steven, for our Q&A session. Steven?

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Our first question comes from Ross Sperenblik of William Blair. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning. This is Sam Karloff. Thanks for taking my questions.

Hey, Sam.

So organic orders are relatively strong across the board. I'm curious how your capital equipment project funnel has evolved over the past few months in each segment. And then are there any major macro or customer trends that have gotten better or worse for your business over the past few months?

I think the activity level, the discussion level has improved and I would say the pipeline is growing, although I can't say there's any particular area where things have really changed. What we're finding is more activity in some of the newer markets that we've gotten into, the defense side, aerospace, automation, those areas are growing faster and they seem to be and right now willing to make more investments in those areas. So that's the areas that we've seen some nice bookings, some nice growth area. The larger capital projects tend to be associated with our industrial processing segment. I'm talking about projects that can be anywhere from $5 million to $25 million. Those I would say are still in discussions, but they are taking longer to turn into orders than they have traditionally. So there's still some some caution in some of those larger capital projects in some of our older core markets. But the newer markets we've entered into, the investment cycle seems to be accelerating.

Got it. No, that's super helpful. I guess switching gears for a second, can you give us an update on the integration of ProPhil and kind of update us on where you are working through the inventory on hand from that business?

Yeah, I'll let Mike discuss where we are, but I would say from an operational standpoint, the integration's gone quite well. As you're aware, we've worked with them for 30 years. Half their business was to us already, so it's been a very smooth, I would say, integration, and we're very pleased with the way things are going there. They're out chasing some new markets and having some success. We announced, I think, last quarter they got in a very large order in the aerospace area, so we're We're so far quite pleased with the operational integration.

And Sam, on the inventory front, I think as we had forecast, we're going to start to turn the corner here in the fourth quarter. So by the first quarter of 27, that should be relatively behind us for the standard components.

Got it. That's super helpful. And then just before I forget, can you give the split on the backlog for capital equipment versus parts and consumables?

Yeah. So we ended with the backlog of $316 million, and the split is $167 capital, parts and consumables $149.

Got it, okay, that's super helpful. I will pass it along.

Okay. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gary Prestopino of Barrington. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Mike, I was just going through some of my notes. When you made this acquisition of, what was it, Profile KAI, You said it was going to be diluted this year because of the intercompany transfers, right? About 20 cents per share? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So as we get into 27, how does that start factoring out? I mean, that whole 20 cent drag is going to go away and it should start maybe kind of mimicking the margins that your overall company has or generates. or within the segment division that it's in?

Yeah, that's a good way to think of it, Gary. We're tracking to that 20 cent drag and right now as we get right off the bat and we get into 27, we'll, I believe, turn the corner on that and you'll start to see improvement in the margin profile for the industrial processing for specific to and the Wood sector. Okay, that's good.

And then the previous question asked about the backlog for capital and aftermarket parts. What was the corresponding backlog last year at this time for capital and aftermarket parts?

Last year it was 273. And I don't have in with me, I will guess, that that was probably about 60-40, 60% capital, 40% parts. That'd be my estimate on that.

Okay. And just any thoughts now that this election is over and the uncertainties are gone, at least domestically, what kind of impact do you think that could possibly have on your capital project activity?

Boy, I've got to be honest with you. Gary, I have no clue. I mean, it's, you know, things have been, I would say, generally speaking, things have been, and we've said this now for actually for quite some time, things have been much softer than we would have expected when you look at the overall state of the economy. And so, you know, short of us going into a macro recession, it's kind of, you know, it would be surprising if things get substantially worse. Could they get better? Absolutely. You know, we think that and many of our customers have under invested now for the last several years. And that's why our parts continue to set new record levels even though operating rates are actually quite soft. They're nowhere near record operating rates and yet we just continue to have quarter after quarter of record parts because they're running such old equipment. So they're going to have to start to make some investments. And we're talking to some customers that are now saying, okay, we're starting to put our plans together to start to reinvest in the business. but I wouldn't venture a guess on these election results and how they might impact things. I don't see, I mean, there's nothing quite obvious that would be highly negative that I can see, but I'm not far enough to figure out what these guys are gonna do.

Okay, that's helpful when you say the thought there. And then just a comment on the M&A pipeline.

Yeah, I would tell you that it's softened a little bit as the year has progressed here. At the beginning of the year, there was some decent deal flow. But recently, the bankers have been telling us, and we've experienced it ourselves, a little bit of a slowdown in new deals coming to market. And there's a huge pent-up book of businesses that need to be moved, certainly on the sponsor side, on the private equity side. They've got big portfolios of businesses that they've not brought to market. They're going to have to do that. But things have, I would say, have softened a little bit here as the years progressed.

Okay. Thank you very much. And best of luck to you in your retirement. Thanks. I appreciate it.

I'm not going away completely. He's not getting out that easy. I'm not going away completely.

Just a little less work.

Thank you, Gary.

You'll have a part-time gig as an advisor, right?

Well, I'm actually still going to be an employee through all 27, so I don't come off the payroll to 28. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 1. Our next question comes from the line of Walter Liptech of Seaport Research. Your line is now open.

Hi, thanks. Good morning, guys, and congratulations, Jeff, on a really good run. Thanks, Walt. Appreciate it. I wanted to ask a question about the The comment that you made on the first question about some of the pivot into defense, aerospace, automation growing faster. I wonder if you could give us a little bit more color about, you know, sort of what that funnel looks like and maybe the magnitude like, you know, if you are seeing more capital orders there, like what percentage of revenue do those sectors make up?

Yeah, I don't have that exact number. Of course, it's a new market for us, so it's a smaller percentage. It's just that a lot of it is new business, you know, that we didn't have before. So, you know, it is impactful from that standpoint. It is growing. Probably, I think, this year, I think our biggest order in a new market was on the aerospace side. I think it was about an $8 million order. Mike, is that right? Correct. We got about an $8 million order. You know, we mentioned that on the factory automation side that we picked up several million dollars worth of business this year that was new business to us, and that continues even today. recently I think we've continued to book some some nice factory automation projects with some big well-known names so it's all kind of incrementally new business for us and it's markets that we're putting a lot of focus you know we're strategically we're focusing on those because we do know they're the new business for us and also growing faster you know than some of the older markets so you know it's it's it's encouraging to see that we're having some good success there.

Okay and the The $25 million order that you referenced, is that in the papermaking sector?

Well, I just talked about project sizes in the industrial processing side range anywhere from five to as much as 25. We have booked $25 million orders in the fiber processing side in the past. Oh, okay. Our single largest projects tend to be on the fiber processing side.

Okay. Okay, and then, yeah, I guess as we're thinking about 2027, it seems like some of the sectors, you know, been consolidating here for a little while. Is, you know, based on your experience, is there like a point at which the recapitalization starts as they invest in the remaining facilities, updating them and things even before sort of the sectors start changing? Or, you know, is there something that we're We should be thinking about for when some of the more traditional capital orders start picking up.

Yeah, I think that some of our customers have started to talk and announce that they're going to start to reinvest in the assets that they kept online. As you know, there was a fair amount of consolidation, particularly in the fiber processing side. And when that happens, of course, they spend their time focused on which assets are going to shutter and which ones are going to invest in. because overall demand for the product globally at least has not gone down. It continues to go up. So you've got to replace that. If they shut down a plant somewhere, somewhere else it's got to be picked up. And so some of our customers have announced and are talking about an investment cycle starting up as they now have rationalized their combined operation and are ready to start trying to improve efficiencies and get ready for, I think, the economies as they start to reaccelerate. So we do expect to see some of that, have had some discussions along those lines.

Okay, great. And then just the last one for me, you know, the margins look pretty good, kind of across the board, with the exception of some of the noise from acquisitions. But the, you know, how are you feeling about price cost and, you know, just selling price increases and being able to deal with inflationary pressures?

Yeah, I mean, what we primarily focused on is internal cost control, internal initiatives. I mean, the market isn't very excited about price increases right now with, you know, the economy's, you know, in some areas still being somewhat soft. But where we can make an impact and where we have focused and got benefit from is, you know, really operational efficiencies and cost controls internally within our organization. So we have some, you know, fairly global, I would say global-wide initiatives we're working on right now to to continue to bring our costs down to become more efficient. And so that's really where we're seeing the benefits from, less so on pricing and more on our internal efficiencies and cost control.

Okay, got it. Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 101 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by while we allow some time for additional questions. Okay, I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Jeff Powell, CEO, for closing remarks.

Thanks, Stephen. So before wrapping up the call today, I just wanted to leave you with a few takeaways. 2026 is expected to be a record-setting year for Cadent, despite the economic pressures and geopolitical challenges around the world. Strong performance in the first three quarters of 2026, along with the numerous operational improvements we've achieved, through our 80-20 performance system and other initiatives that position us well for the remainder of the year. We look forward to sharing our successes with you on future calls and we want to thank you for joining us today.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program and you may now disconnect.